Historical Toilets

Toilets through History

This page provides a very brief overview
of toilets throughout human history.
Click on any of the pictures or descriptions to
see many more pictures and detailed explanations
of toilets and other plumbing from the various
periods.

The toilets here are arranged by the starting year of
each period, starting all the way back in the Stone Age.

10,000 — 2100 BC Neolithic Era

The Neolithic settlement of
Skara Brae,
in the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland,
includes what are believed to be toilets attached to each
of the eight interconnected dwellings.

The Neolithic Era, literally meaning "New Stone Age" and
referring to a period of a common technological level,
extended over approximately 10,000 to 2100 BC in Orkney.
Skara Brae itself was occupied from 3100 to 2500 BC.
See the Neolithic Toilet page
for several more pictures and further details.

2100 — 1100 BC Mycenaean Greece

Mycenae,
or
Μυκήνες
in Greek,
was first settled by Neolithic people in the 6th millennium BC.
It's in the Peloponnese, south of Corinth and
southwest of Athens in what today is southern Greece.

Between about 2100 and 1900 BC, during the Old Bronze Age,
Indo-European people crossed Anatolia, moved through Troy
and on to the west and south through Greece.
Existing settlements in the mainland were primitive,
and the new arrivals brought an advanced culture.
A number of small kingdoms were established.

The kingdom of
Mycenae
became the most powerful by far,
leading to the entire civilization of that area being
called Mycenaean.
For the 400 years from 1600 to 1200 BC,
Mycenae
was the most powerful kingdom in Greece.

It's hard to distinguish history from myth in Mycenae.
But somewhere around the 14th Century BC, there really
seems to have been a
King Agamemnon of Mycenae.
Agamemnon's brother was Menelaus.
According to Homer,
Menelaus' wife Helen was abducted by Paris of Troy and
taken back to his city on the northwest coast of Anatolia.
Agamemnon then commanded the Achaean forces (what we often
mis-label as "Greek" today) in the Trojan War.

Meanwhile, back in the royal citadel of
Mycenae,
the above pictures shows King Agamemnon's innermost
royal chamber, and therefore the location of his chamber pot.
Make that his Royal Chamber Pot.

1600 BC — 395 AD Delphic Greece

Delphi,
in Greece northwest of Athens, was a religious center
for two millenia, from 1600 BC until 395 AD.
By 1600 BC a shrine had been erected for Gaia,
the Mother Goddess of west Asia,
Then the myth held that the office of Oracle
was held by the goddesses Themis and Phoebe.
Later, the site was believed to be sacred to Poseidon,
the deity of earthquakes known as "Earth-Shaker".
During the Greek Dark Ages (11th-9th century BC),
the temple was turned over to Apollo.

This is the main temple in Delphi, the
Temple of Apollo.
The entrance to the temple was at the far
or left end in this view.

The Sanctum Sanctorum,
the Holiest of Holies,
was at the opposite end,
nearest the viewpoint in this picture.
This was where the Oracle of Delphi
sat on a tripod above a
crevasse
that emitted ethylene gas leading to
the Oracle's strange mental states.

The Oracle would babble semi-coherently.
Her ravings would then be "translated"
by the temple priests into elegant hexameters.

The south side of the temple, the long downhill face, has a
small passage
leading back toward the area underneath the Oracle's seat!
You can crawl back in there, I have pictures from inside that
passage on the
dedicated page about Delphi.
But I had no visions.

Visitors did not just casually wander in to
Delphi.
Pilgrims would land at the Gulf of Corinth, several miles
away, proceeding several miles up the valley toward the
sacred site.
They would purify themself on the way toward the sacred
precincts.

The
Castalian Spring
and the sacred
bathing area
for cleansing purposes date
back to Mother Goddess days, long before the Delphi of
Classical Greek tradition.

1200 — 700 BC Phrygian / Hittite

The capital of the
Hittite Empire
was at
Hattuşaş,
next to today's small Turkish farming village
of
Boğazkale.
After the fall of the Hittite Empire around 1200 BCE,
the Phrygians established a capital there.

This sewage drain dates from the Phrygian occupation
of the site about 1200-700 BCE.

The Phrygian people had a series of kings alternately
named Gordias and Midas, as in the mythic Midas of
the Golden Touch and the Gordian Knot.
Phrygia itself fell under the Cimmerian invasion around
700 BC, becoming part of Lydia, ruled by the
proverbially wealthy King Croesus.

900 BC — 100 AD Delian Greece

After the Greek Dark Ages and the emergence of
the Ancient Greek culture,
the island of
Delos
became dedicated to the
Ancient Greek religion.
These are the famous lion statues on the
Terrace of the Lions
near the Sanctuary of Apollo.
They were dedicated to Apollo shortly before 600 BC
by the people of Naxos.

Delos was a major cult center from 900 BC to 100 AD.
It went through a number of cycles in which businesses
would be established around the pilgrimage activity.
At times it had the largest slave market in the region,
and a number of large homes were built during these periods.
But then the island would be "cleansed" of economic
activity and re-dedicated purely to religion.

The Delian League started meeting here after its
foundation in 478 BC, after the Persian wars.

625 BC — 1000 AD Magna Graecia

Greek settlers colonized southern Italy and Sicily in
the 8th Century BC.
It was absorbed into the Roman Republic after the Pyrrhic
War (280-275 BC).
A major city was
Ποσειδονια,
or
Poseidonia,
called
Paestum
in classical Roman times and today.
It's south of Salerno, an easy day trip from
the Amalfitani coast.

509 — 27 BC Roman Republic

The city block of
Rome
between Largo di Torre Argentina and Via Florida
on the north and south, respectively,
and Via di Torre Argentina and Via San Nicola da' Cesarini
on the west and east, respectively,
contains a number of
plumbing-related Roman ruins.

Also, the portico of Pompey,
formally known as
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus,
was located here.
It served as the
Roman Senate house.
The Senate met there, and it was where Julius Caesar
was assassinated on 15 March 44 BC.

A large public latrine
is in the northwest corner of this excavated block.
This would have been the toilet used when the Roman Senate
took a bathroom break, since the Senate met in the building
adjacent to the south side of this large latrine.

A long row of seats, now missing, would have been
directly over the large channel.
Users would have been seated facing toward our right
in this view, or toward the more recent brick wall,
so they could bend forward and dip water from the
shallow channel running past their feet.

292 BC — 700s AD Biblical, New Testament

New Testament Biblical toilets
in my collection include
the famous public latrine at
Ephesus,
seen here.
A settlement was founded in that area in the 10th Century BC,
but it was relocated to its final location in 292 BC.
Ephesus became the principal city of Asia Minor, so this
public latrine was quite large.

These similar marble public toilets are next to the main
processional way from the harbor gate in
Corinthos, Greece.
These date from when the Apostle Paul was visiting Corinthos,
trying to turn people away from the mountaintop debauchery
at the Temple of Aphrodite, visible on the mountaintop
in the distance.

These surprisingly scenic urinals are at
Maryemana,
on a mountain above Ephesus.

Other
New Testament era
toilet pictures on the dedicated page
include more from both Ephesus and Corinthos,
and pictures of the public latrines at
Hierapolis
in Asia Minor, now Pamukkale, Turkey.

62 AD Roman (Oplontis)

Roman Emperor Nero
had a luxurious villa in the town of Oplontis, the
Villa Poppaea.
Unfortunately for Nero, his villa was close to Pompeii,
and more significantly, very close to Vesuvius.

Nero
was born 15 December 37 AD, and ruled from 13 October 54
until his death by suicide on 9 June 68.
He had accomplished quite a bit by then, but mentioning
that is much like pointing out that Adolf Hitler liked dogs.

In 53, Nero married his stepsister Claudia Octavia.
Then, in 58, Nero began an affair with Poppaea Sabina,
the wife of his friend (and future Emperor) Otho.
He then ordered the murder of his mother in 59 because
it did not seem politically feasible to divorce his stepsister
and marry his friend's wife while his mother was alive.

Here you see the
brothel toilet.
It's a basic one-hole frame design built of stone.
A chamber pot would be placed below the hole,
to be dumped into the sewer immediately outside after use.

So, this is an indoor toilet but not indoor plumbing.

One of Pompeii's main products was processed wool.
Wool must be fulled, which means cleaned or scoured.
The wool fulling process in Roman used
human urine.
Here we see a wool fulling tank, once filled with urine
and used to clean the newly purchased wool.

305 — 311 AD Late Roman (Thessaloniki)

Galerius based himself in
Thessaloniki
because, let's face it,
Rome was pretty well gone by the early 300s.
Constantinople was where you found culture.
Since there was an Augustus already ruling in Constantinople,
and Rome was a wreck, Galerius had a base in Thessaloniki
where several Galerian monuments survive.

One of these is the excavated site of his palace,
on today's Plateia Navarinou.
Of course it had
latrines,
and of course I photographed them.

909 — 1171 Fatimid

This fine marble
kilga
or
water jar stand
held a babb, a large unglazed earthenware jar.
Water was filtered as it seeped through the bottom of the
jar, and it collected in the basin at bottom.

This kilga was produced sometime in the 11th through
the first half of the 12th century in either Egypt or Syria.

960s — 1539 Arthurian

In 1191 the
Glastonbury Abbey
in southwestern England was in financial trouble.
The abbot directed the monks to dig in a particular spot
in the cemetery, where they found a large oak casket
holding a man and woman.
Obviously this was Arthur and Guinevere!
Well, there was a lead cross enscribed in Latin, reading
something like Here lies Arturus, king of the Britons.
So they were moved to a new tomb in what was then
a fairly new cathedral.
And so today you can stand in one spot and see
two tombs of Arthur and Guinevere.

The abbey ruins include a large plumbing contraption labeled
REREDORTER.
This obscure term specifically means the latrine associated
with a monastic establishment, which is usually located
behind the dorter or sleeping quarters.

1140 — 1518 Medieval Scotland

Monastic communities called their latrines
reredorters.
Here is the reredorter at the
Saint Andrew Cathedral Priory,
a priory of Augustinian canons.
Construction on the cathedral began in 1158.

Off the west coast of Scotland,
in the Inner Hebrides, the
Iona Abbey
was built starting in 1203.
However, the monastery itself dates back
to the arrival in the year 563 of Colm Cille,
later known as Saint Columba, with 12 companions.
This is the reredorter of the abbey.

1465 — 1853 Imperial Ottoman

This is the
toilet of the
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire,
the ruler of all the Middle East, northern Africa,
and south-east Europe.
This toilet is in the harem, the private quarters
of the sultan,
in Topkapı Palace in
İstanbul, Turkey,
the official and primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans
from 1465 through 1853.

1596-1855 England

Harington wrote a satirical booklet ostensibly
describing how to build a cleaner and less odorous
toilet like the new one at his house, although it was
a fairly overt allegory criticizing the court of
Queen Elizabeth I, especially her favorite courtier.

1750 — 1759 Pre-Revolution France

This soft-paste porcelain chamber pot
from the Sèvres manufacturing plant is an example
of what European nobility used in place of toilets.
The Sèvres porcelain factory had been founded
in 1738 by King Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour,
his official chief mistress.

This example is in the collection of the
Metropolitain Museum of Art in New York.

1750 — 1790 American Revolution

This brick-lined, circular "necessary" (privy) pit
was probably built when Franklin expanded his house
in 1786-1787. A stone drain connecting to a vertical
brick pipe conveyed waste into the pit either from
Franklin's "water closet", "bathing room", or
"run-off" from the sunken areaway outside the
cellar kitchen.

1830 — 1835 19th Century America

Edgar Allan Poe
moved to Amity Street in West Baltimore in 1832.
The home was outside the city then.
Now it's in the middle of a pretty awful urban setting.
He won an 1833 literary contest for his story
MS. Found In A Bottle.
In 1835, he married his young cousin Virginia.

Edgar and Virginia Poe, with mother-in-law in tow,
later moved to New York.
In October, 1849, Poe was passing through Baltimore.
On the night of the 3rd, he was found on the streets
delirious and "in great distress, and in need of
immediate assistance."
He was taken to a hospital, where he died on the morning of
the 7th without becoming coherent enough to explain how
he had gotten into his dire state or why he was wearing
someone else's clothes.
Delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis,
meningitis, cholera, and rabies have all been blamed.

American homes did not have indoor plumbing in the 1830s.
The Poes would have had
chamber pots
in the bedrooms and possibly a
privy
out back.
But given the dire financial situation of the Poes,
their privy may not have been much.

Theodore Roosevelt was born to a
financially successful family living in a
nice brownstone on East 20th Street in Manhattan.

Natural gas was distributed through pipelines
in that part of the city, and the Roosevelt home
used gas for lighting.

The Croton Aqueduct was built between 1837 and 1842,
carrying water from the Croton River in Westchester
County to reservoirs in Manhattan.
One reservoir was at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue,
the current location of the main branch of the
New York Public Library.
It held 20 million US gallons or 76,000 cubic
meters of water, and was put in service in 1842.

But when Theodore was born in 1848, water
distribution and sewage collection systems did not
extend as far south as 20th street.
They collected water from a well and carried it
into the house, and then carried their waste
back out.

1854 Victorian London

Doctor John Snow
analyzed the available information and determined that the
main agent spreading cholera was a
public water pump
on Broad Street.
The spring below the pump had been contaminated by sewage.

Snow didn't know what the contaminant was, but he found that
the common attribute of victims was the use of water
from that pump.
Snow's analysis was one of the first examples of epidemiology.
Despite objections, he convinced the government officials
to remove the pump's handle.
This stopped that outbreak, but it took many more years before
there was wide belief in contaminated water as the cause.
"Miasma" or "bad air" was the preferred explanation.

1849 — 1929 Barbary Coast, San Francisco

The Barbary Coast was a notorious red-light
district in San Francisco.
It was created during the 1849 California Gold Rush when
tens of thousands of miners were flooding into the city.
There was very little law enforcement, really very little
city government of any form, and so crime flourished.

1910 — 1943 Fascists and Laxatives

Benito Mussolini's Blackshirt thugs used
the powerful laxative
castor oil
as a weapon of torture and coercion, as punishment and threat.

He didn't devise this on his own.
Like much of Italian Fascism, including the Roman salute,
the balcony address in which the dictator harangues the
crowd at length, and the appropriation of religious
symbols for large public secular rituals, he also got
the idea for laxative punishment from
Gabriele D'Annunzio, a poet, writer,
journalist and playwright turned anarcho-fascist.

My cromwell-intl.com domain appeared in September, 2001,
although the Wayback Machine didn't notice its one enormous
Toilet of the World page until
January 17, 2002.
Some time soon after that I split it into categories,
and the collection has grown ever since.

In December, 2010 I registered the
toilet-guru.com
domain and moved the pages to a dedicated server.